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Star Wars and Beyond
}} |} About Star Wars and Beyond was a fan-made radio show/podcast created, hosted and produced by Robbie Chastain, whose initial idea for the show was conceived in early 2004 and the first episode took six months to conceive and produce as Robbie had to completely learn how to make and put together a radio show. Chastain credits Nathan P. Butler and Rich Sigfrit with teaching him how to make a radio show. One of Robbie's initial early ideas was that the show had to be different in some regard from what Butler was doing with ChronoRadio and what Sigfrit (along with Ron and Janine Garner) was doing with Requiem of the Outcast in that he felt that if the show were based on Star Wars only, it would be pretty much a copycat of what had been done with these other shows and that if it were Star Wars only topics, he'd run out of material fairly quickly. So in what was at the time, a rather revolutionary step for the Fanworks community, Chastain decided to include other material such as Star Trek for example, and other real world topics as part of the normal material that would be presented on the show instead of doing things like that in various special episodes not part of the normal broadcast. The first episode premiered on September 1, 2004 and regularly scheduled episodes released on a bi-monthly schedule from September 2004 through November 2005. There were eight regular episodes, two supplemental episodes and three interview editions released in that first fifteen months of broadcast. The First Five Episodes During production of Episode I, Chastain noticed that his then bi-monthly release schedule would put his fifth episode out in May 2005, the same month that ''Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith'' would release to theaters. With that information in mind, Chastain decided to use the first five episodes of SWAB as a sort of buildup to Episode III by reviewing the five previously released Star Wars movies and have guests that were interviewed in those five episodes review the movies. For Episode I, Janine Garner reviewed ''A New Hope''. For Episode II, Lou Tambone reviewed ''The Empire Strikes Back''. For Episode III, Rich Sigfrit reviewed ''Return of the Jedi''. For Episode IV, Steve Mollmann reviewed ''The Phantom Menace'' and for Episode V, Nathan P. Butler reviewed ''Attack of the Clones''. The Fan Audio & GalacticSenate.com Communities Review Episode III For Episode VI, Chastain knew that the episode would have to focus on the just released Episode III. To do that, he decided on a unique approach: Chastain decided that he would interview as many members of the fan audio community to get their thoughts and opinions about the movie. But then he decided to also include any member of the Galactic Senate.com community that was interested in sharing their thoughts. What was intended as one episode stretched into two episodes with twenty-one reviews total, timed out at about four and a half hours, and was released during the month of July 2005. In the years since these two episodes were released, Robbie Chastain has since admitted that because those two episodes were so long, that there probably should have been three episodes rather than two to cut down on the length and if he had it to do over again, there would have been three. These two episodes won Robbie the "Best Revenge of the Sith Coverage" award at the 2006 Star Wars Fanworks Fan Audio Academy Awards. Revision Tired of a regular release schedule, and disheartened by a dwindling audience, Chastain contemplated ending the show in November 2005 with Episode VIII. Indeed the show did go on a brief hiatus after Episode VIII's release on November 1, 2005 however after a break from fan audio, Chastain decided to continue his show, albeit without a set release schedule ala Roney Zone Radio. This freed Chastain up do to shows at his pace, be it faster or slower than bi-monthly. Bryan Patrick Stoyle After recording a review for the Episode III review shows, thoughts of a full-fledged interview with Bryan Patrick Stoyle was bandied about by Stoyle and Chastain for some time, but they didn't actually get together until early 2006 to conduct a full and proper interview, which was released as Episode XII of SWAB. The interview was so successful and both participants enjoyed themselves enough that Chastain invited Stoyle immediately following the interview if he would be interested in joining SWAB on a regular basis as co-host and Stoyle accepted. Stoyle's first appearance as co-host was in helping Chastain present the 2006 Fan Audio Academy Awards in SWAB Episode XIII. Stoyle would continue to work on the show until college and work and other activities which dominated his life, forced him to leave the show in September 2006, although he would return for a one-shot appearance to help Chastain in Episode XXIV to present the 2007 Fan Audio Awards. The End In 2007, after getting tired of having to do the show and not really wanting to go back to a single host format, Chastain decided the time had come for the end of SWAB. A finale was planned for March 2007 but due to Chastain's extremely busy work schedule (as well as some personal issues), the episode was delayed until late June 2007. Due to a personal financial crunch, Chastain's personal website, starwarsandbeyond.com, which was hosting the show as well as several other radio shows as well as Steve Mollmann's Star Trek Foundation audio series, had to be taken down. The SWAB archive is available for download however, through the Fanworks podcast feed. http://starwarsfanworks.libsyn.com/rss Return? With renewed interest in the fan audio community even though he said he would probably not host another radio show, Robbie Chastain has always reserved the right to change his mind and has been quoted as saying "Never say never" in regards to potentially having another show come up or possibly even restarting SWAB. An announcement was posted on the SWAB thread at the Galactic Senate message boards in early 2008 indicating a return of Star Wars and Beyond possibly for the summer. In preparation for such a relaunch, several episodes, which Chastain was not completely happy with, were given what one might call a "Special Edition treatment" to fix certain glitches or gaffes that might not have been apparent or avoidable when the episode was initially released. Unfortunately, while the "special edition" episodes were completed before the SWAB archive began appearing on the Fanworks podcast feed, an unforeseen change in Robbie's work situation not long after the initial announcement, ended up killing these hopes and plans as some things that would have been needed to conduct the show to Chastain's personal satisfaction, (such as a landline telephone to conduct interviews with), became impossible to afford. Robbie had hoped to possibly restart the show then in the fall but due to same types of circumstances that didn't get to happen either. Although his hopes for restarting SWAB were dashed, Robbie has enjoyed watching the fan audio community grow from the sidelines and also happily lending his voice occasionally to fan audio projects from time to time such as Joe Harrison's High Stakes audio drama as well as Jeff Roney's New World Army drama. In late 2009, Robbie announced that he is working (although admittedly rather slowly) on an audio drama entitled Dragnet 1969 BBY which will essentially be a Dragnet story in a Star Wars setting. Robbie's goal is to get the drama released sometime during 2010. Aside from this project, Robbie has contented himself with these small contributions to the community, a community that he has stated he is very proud to be part of. Awards Received *2006 Fan Audio Academy Awards - Best Coverage of Revenge of the Sith Category:Radio Shows